The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
- Автор: Anderson Lars, Barr Randolph
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Vintage Books
- ISBN: 978-0-307-28048-0
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps». Краткое содержание книги:
Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train — a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best.
“Well, that’s exactly what I’m intending to do before I’m finished, Saint!” she returned, coolly. “Not only prove it, but see to it that you’re put where you belong! You’re a traitor to the honest citizens who put you in office!”
Saint edged slowly forward, his crafty eyes riveted on Ellen’s automatic. “The Domino Lady is very much wanted by a great many men in this city.” He sneered. “I’d advise you to tend to your own business.”
Suddenly he lunged, his hand outstretched. For a moment it seemed as though he’d overpowered her. Her gun hand grasped in his own hand, he catapulted with her to the floor.
For once Ellen had been taken unawares. In the uncertain light she had failed to notice his forward movement. In the moment he leaped she fired. Her bullet going, as she thought, wild.
For she had scarce time to aim in that split second.
Springing lithely to her feet Ellen stared at the form of J. Riggs Saint on the stone floor. He lay inert, strangely still... dead.
For a moment panic seized her.
Murder. Something she had always steered clear of. Murder. A vision of the gallows flitted across her remorseful mind. She noticed a trickle of blood seep from his temple onto the hard floor.
A feeling of nausea swept over her. She reeled and, had it not been for her nervy will, would have slipped to the floor, unconscious.
A harsh breath escaped the figure on the floor. Ellen bent, her hand retrieving the little automatic which but a moment before had slipped from her nerveless fingers. One little hand slid beneath his shirt front. He lived! His breathing was regular, though rapid.
In another moment her fingers had flecked at the smear of blood on his temple. Only a scalp wound, a crease. But it had been that perhaps, that had saved The Domino Lady from prison.
Swiftly her fingers dipped into a tiny pocket inside her cape, drew forth a small object which glittered in the indirect light. It was a little hypodermic syringe, previously loaded with a quick-acting drug. The drug, though harmless, was sufficiently strong to render the victim unconscious for several hours.
A deft motion and the sharp needle sank home, its fluid finding a place beneath his skin. Ellen Patrick was coolness personified, now. Her movements were precise, and executed with a deftness that was truly amazing.
She picked up the briefcase, opened it, and hurriedly scanned its contents. Her features lit up with an exultant smile as she read, briefly, here and there, before replacing the contents back in the case, which she tossed in the front seat of the car.
Working with incredible speed and precision, she produced a roll of cord from the garage locker and proceeded to bind the hands and feet of the insensible man. Bending, she cut a heavy strip of adhesive from a roll taken from her handy wrist bag. This was carefully applied across Saint’s mouth.
It was quite a task for Ellen to get the bound figure into the rear of the sedan.
He was not a large man, but his drugged body was a limp, dead freight, and it required all the strength in her hundred-and-twenty-pound frame to accomplish the task. She was panting softly when she had finished and closed the door.
She backed the big car noiselessly from the garage, consumed precious moments in shutting the garage doors.
Although her heart was churning madly from exertion and excitement, she was as cool as a Winter’s breeze as she swung the sedan about in the street, and trod the accelerator. A laugh of triumph burst from her lips as she removed the domino mask, the big car leaped forward into the night.
Chapter Three
Danger Trail
The night was dark, moonless, and wisps of yellow fog had drifted in from the nearby Pacific.
A good night for her venture, mused Ellen, as she throttled the sedan to a higher speed. Paul Cathern’s directions emblazoned on her mind, she felt no fear of missing her destination. A moment after she had crossed the city line, a new concrete highway stretched before her.
Along this she roared at sixty miles an hour. After five miles, she slowed the car, went forward more cautiously. Suddenly, she swung the wheel, switched on to a narrower macadam road which ran off to the left into open country.
Driving slowly, a half mile brought a winking eye of light to her attention. She cut off the sedan headlights, idled the engine to a noiseless purr. Moments later, she cut the engine off entirely, braked to a standstill. All was ominously quiet in the blackness of the foggy night.
Ellen climbed from the sedan after a quick glance assured her that her captive still slumbered. She hesitated beside the car, drew the tiny black mask again up about her eyes. The automatic again in hand, she set off in the direction of the light.
She moved soundlessly through the darkness. If this were indeed the Obispo rendezvous of the Black Legion, she might expect a guard lurking in any of the darker spaces, she knew.
And this would hold doubly true if her guess concerning the whereabouts of the missing detective was well-founded. Outwardly, she was calm, but her heart was racing, blood pounding wildly through her veins as her crisis approached.
At closer view, Ellen made out the outlines of a rather ramshackle building. It was but one story in height and possessed three rooms. The room on her left was lighted, the remainder of the structure being darkened.
She crept toward the lighted side, every sense alert to her danger. At the mere cracking of a twig under foot, she paused for precious moments, pulse pounding, and a prayer for safety on her quivering lips.
So much depended upon her this night — she just couldn’t fail. It would be tonight or never! Failure now would mean tasting Saint’s vengeance.
Abruptly, a dark figure loomed between her and the light which filtered from the window!
A sentry!
The man seemed to be leaning against the wall near the corner of the building, unmoving. Ellen tensed, catching her breath sharply. She hadn’t tried to fool herself; these were desperate men — if she were caught, it would mean torture, death, or worse!
Many another might have faltered at the obstacle now confronting her. But the little adventuress was made of sterner stuff. The sight of a guard only added to her determination to follow through with her plans.
To one of her temperament, there was but one means of procedure. She must move directly, court the element of surprise to her favor, overcome the sentry by physical means, and as quietly as possible! She tensed, moving an inch at a time upon the unsuspecting man, the automatic reversed in her fist!
The black-hooded sentinel was half-asleep at his post. He snapped to attention a moment too late to miss the white-clad figure which hurtled upon him from out of the blackness.
A hurried motion toward his left armpit, a sucking intake of breath for a cry of warning and Ellen lunged forward, every ounce of her athletic frame behind the move, her right arm swinging in the arc of a swift half circle as she leaped.
The solid shank of the automatic whammed against the side of the guard’s head. The force of her charge carried them both to the ground, this time Ellen atop the heap. She rose immediately, dusting dried grass from her clothing, and smiling grimly at the recumbent figure.
She had come prepared for such an emergency. The large roll of adhesive was put into use, sealing the man’s lips, and securing his hands and feet against his possible awakening, she quickly rolled the limp figure into a dark corner near a rickety fence to prevent early discovery.
For a full minute, Ellen paused, tense, brown eyes straining in the direction of the lighted window.
Her great orbs were agleam. Here was the work that she loved, and it was being performed in the cause that meant more to her than life itself.